I'm now teaching for over twenty-five years. I stopped and started when I was having my children. I'd have a very good class going and then I'd stop - two of my children were beside each other, only a year in age between them, and so that put a sort of stop to my classes for about three years. Then when they joined into secondary school, I stopped again.

Now, Iım just delighted, thrilled, with the idea that I can still teach and still do all the videos that I love doing because I'm still able.

Children start with me at a good four-and-a-half, and the majority of them stay. However if they're really, really not interested, they usually stop dancing at about twelve.

During those years, between four and twelve, they will either become very good dancers and do all the shows and the feisianna, or else they attend without the competition element, just because they love their dancing. About half of my dancers have gone on to take competition or show dancing seriously. I encourage them all in their unique own way for their love of the dance.

Oh yes, I get that too. I have many, many people asking me now, adults, saying 'teach me to dance!' and I wish there were fifty hours in the day so that I could do that, but unfortunately I can't.

The children range in age from about four up to .....well, now they would be twenty-five or so, but now lots of my girls are in shows, not necessarily Riverdance, Lord of the Dance - I do have girls in Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, but most of them are in other shows starting up, like Dancing on the Moon, Gaelforce, Majic, all these different ones.

"...one of my secret dreams would be to have an academy of dance where I could put different aspects of dance together, ballet and jazz..."

There are certainly more numbers of enthusiastic parents and children coming to me now as a result of the growth in Irish Dancing. However, they have always been just as highly enthusiastic about their dance - that has never changed. The only difference is the number of people interested! More of that growth in numbers seems to be coming from new students in Europe and America, as here in Ireland have always had a high percentage of children dancing.

I personally have not noticed a huge change in the male numbers in my own dancing class. But watching from an adjudicator's perspective, I notice an upsurge all round! I have definitely noticed a bigger interest across Europe, than anywhere else in the world. It's incredible! Ballet and jazz, tap and flamenco dancers, all wanting to learn our wonderful art form, and then setting up their own companies and making a living and joy from it!

One of my secret dreams would be to have an academy of dance where I could put different aspects of dance together, ballet and jazz, mostly ballet.

When I was a child there was a lady called Joan Denise Moriarty, who has since passed on. She was very well-known, and she taught ballet through Irish music. She was incredible and I loved what she did. I think I was seriously influenced by her wonderful choreography. If I have anyone that I could say made an impact on my style of choreography when I was growing up, then it would be her! She had so many magnificent, graceful movements.

My younger dancers do a lot of show dancing, my eleven, twelve-year-olds, and they do pieces from Riverdance, Lord of the Dance - but they dance my choreography, influenced by Joan Denise!

Do you have children, and are they interested in dancing?

I have three boys who are now young men and no, they were never interested in dancing.

I think if I had pushed them to dance they probably would have been very good. They're very musical children - they play the piano, the guitar, and whatever else they fancy, but they don't have a great interest in dancing, performing publicly.

I think they are like their father - somewhat shy - not like their momma, but they inherited the love of music, I think from me! They used to come to the classes and do their homework at the back. They'd enjoy the girls and have fun, and hang around with the boys, but they were mostly into rugby or sport or something like that.

I do, yes. I love adjudicating. I have just come from the American Nationals in Toronto, where I was an official adjudicator. Last year I was also an adjudicator at the 2000 Nationals in San Francisco.

I don't do a lot of judging work throughout the year because I don't have a lot of time, but I suppose I would travel to maybe eight to ten feises maybe, not more than that, in a year. .

Anthony Fallon & Shereen Dolan
on the set of Step by Step III

I do travel to teach workshops. I've been to Stockholm twice, Denmark, Italy, Wales, over the last two years. I've done many workshops in America... well, I would fuse it in with adjudicating. Somebody would say 'Oh, Olive's coming out! Can you give a workshop?' And I would normally agree if I have the time.

I don't like to do workshops away in a hot climate, and that shows in the countries I have visited recently. It's very enjoyable and I love it, but having said that it's intensive hard work, yet very satisfying.

I have taught workshops in America, upstate New York, Albany and so on, but I love giving workshops more in Europe because there are so many schools now ....

One example is a group based in Stockholm - these students taught themselves to dance from my Step by Step videos and then came to Dublin a few times to attend private classes with me, and then they brought me out and now they have their own shows in Sweden.

And that's not the only group, there are lots of others. There are all these European groups who can dance ballet, tap, or jazz - qualified dancers in their own right, deciding 'I want to learn Irish dancing too' and they're loving it, as well as making money. So I've also made lovely friends through all of this, and that's a great bonus to my work .

Oh.... .... I have had the joy of seeing new places I've never been to before. Again Stockholm, parts of Spain I hadn't visited before, Italy… I've had the privilege of seeing and meeting many lovely places and people! I particularly loved visiting the Galicia region of northern Spain.

Irish dancing has opened up so many doors for me.

No. No, I don't need to change the way my school is run.

However, naturally the dance itself has changed and evolved over recent years. I have introduced more hand movements into the class to an earlier age group than before, to help them prepare for shows. I have them putting their hands on their hips, and dancing to brighter music, and they are thoroughly enjoying themselves, more than the children of, say, ten years ago. This is to prepare them for shows at an earlier age, than we would have done some years ago.

My dancers always enjoyed themselves, but I am now enjoying myself more because I'm loving what I'm seeing coming back from the children, the joy in their faces.

So yes, I've changed my routines slightly, but they would have changed anyway, because dance does evolve, and not just because of Riverdance or Michael Flatley or any of the major names. I think it's just something that would have evolved anyway in another direction, as it will continue to in future.

Ronan McCormack & Joan Rafter
on the set of Step by Step III